Brandy Wilcox studied the cowboy's sweet-as-honey, wicked-as-sin smile through the sights of her Winchester. His full lips tugged across Crest-white teeth, exposing a small but sexy gap between his central incisors.

Her trigger finger twitched, and a bead of sweat tickled its way down her backbone. Green--oh yeah, Brandy was green, off duty, and miles from her truck, which sat in a pull-off near a trailhead in the mountainous wilderness of northern Idaho. And the intruder she held at gunpoint probably had seventy muscled pounds on her.

"I know this looks bad, Ma'am," he said, tipping his head toward the cabin's jimmied-open window, "but I can explain," he drawled out "Ma'am" again.

"Deputy Sheriff Brandy Wilcox. Keep you hands where I can see them."

"Brandy?" Impervious to the deputy sheriff title, he straightened and angled his dusty black Stetson over his forehead so the brim shadowed his cool-water eyes. "Name like that could make a man real thirsty."

An FBI agent risks his career when he collaborates with a haunting young widow desperate to prove herself and her husband innocent of diamond trafficking with the terrorist who killed his Delta Force team three years ago.

Five minutes after Shannon's houseguest headed for the shower, she meandered down the hallway and hesitated before knocking on the bedroom door.

"Hey, Crazaniak, you want me to send your shirt and Jockeys through a quick cycle in the washer and dryer?" And how about sending your pants and jacket out to the cleaners?
She rolled her eyes, knowing she had no intention of doing any such thing, or of actually meeting a crazed gunman alone. Maybe she could convince Crazaniak to lurk in the background while she interviewed the Hulk and pushed for more information about his claimed connection with Tyler.

Meanwhile, the only reply from Crazaniak's neck of the woods was the sound of water flowing noisily through the pipes. Since she'd already decided it would be a nice gesture to "tidy his whiteys," she turned the knob and tentatively stepped in. It was her bedroom.

The gun she came across at the bottom of a neatly folded stack of masculine attire on her bed shouldn't have surprised her. She'd seen the Glock earlier.
Intrigued, she reached for the pistol, an object that seemed so out of place in her bedroom. As though she were familiar with handling firearms when she wasn't, she wrapped her hand around the grip then jerked her head toward the bathroom door, conjuring up thriller fantasies.

But she didn't have to conjure anything when she noticed a letter poking out of his inside jacket pocket. Nor did she have to imagine the fact that the closet door stood slightly ajar. Her stomach clenched, a mix of anger and unease. Had the FBI agent been nosing through Tyler's belongings?

Tit for tat--the urge to sneak a peek overwhelmed her. Her heartbeat ratcheted up as she shifted the gun to her left hand and reached for the letter.

At that instant, she sensed a presence behind her.

Even as the sound of water pounded the walls of the tub enclosure, Shannon knew in her heart of hearts that six-foot-plus of dripping wet, naked man stood not relaxing under the water jets, but hovering five heart-palpitating feet away.

"Want to toss me my clothes?" he asked.

Unwilling to face him, she remained quick-frozen like a pillar of salt.

"Tell me you weren't snooping in my things," he rumbled.

"Tell me you weren't snooping in my closet."

"I wasn't snooping."

She eyed the edge of the letter. "I thought I'd treat your duds to some suds. You want to hang out in my robe for a few?"

"Not enough material there to cover my manly attributes. I'll settle for day-old Jockeys, and what the hell were you going to do with my pistol?"

"Nothing." She almost turned around.

Her chest thumped. The thought of Crazaniak au natural not only spiked her pulse, it titillated her imagination. She waited for a chord of guilt to strum across her heart. It didn't happen. Instead, discord fluttered low in her abdomen, and she sensed him moving closer.

While attending a gala D.C. benefit dinner, fashion designer Annastine Jacobson sees a ghost--or at the very least a look-alike for John Trek, the only man she ever loved, the father of her four-year-old daughter, a man who was killed five years ago. Unwilling to shirk her duties as a naturalized American citizen, she agrees to assist Alpha Dogs operative Eric Cavelli, her lover's dead ringer as he and his team set a trap for a dangerous arms dealer.

When Med Tech student Jesse Hawkins agrees to help her childhood best friend stop a terrorist threat, she risks her scholarship, her heart, her life. The boy next door, now a government operative, triggers memories of forgotten bonds and dredges up an avalanche of emotions Jesse would rather not face.

An expert in survival tactics, ex-special ops operative Jag Roberts will do anything to keep Jesse alive long enough to convince her she made a mistake when she dumped him ten years ago. Survival means defeating terrorists and the Russian mafia, as well as prevailing over icy glaciers, bone-freezing temperatures, and sheer drop-offs in the frozen mountains of British Columbia--all as they race to prevent bubonic plague from being smuggled into the U.S. via the Canadian border.

Bronco Ackerman has been in love with country western singer and super star Sherri McShane since the moment he set eyes on her on the TV in his hospital room while recuperating from a war of wills with a bucking bull a few years back. Fat chance she'd give him a second glance.

When Sherri asks him to protect her from a stalker, he's on cloud nine even though he knows he doesn't have a chance with the sexy woman of his dreams. Tell that to his foggy brain when he wakes up, wiped out in Sherri's bed and misses a call to duty.

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If only I knew everything I understood about it!

About Mal

Mal Olson writes adrenaline-kicked romantic suspense. When her consuming passion for writing allows time, she enjoys reading, flower gardening, jamming with friends on her mountain dulcimer, and hiking in the Kettle Moraine Forest (or in the mountains somewhere). She has three grown children and one granddaughter and resides with her own special hero in southeast Wisconsin where she juggles writing time with her freelance landscape design business.